So, I just recently discovered this
video by LateNightGaming talking about the issues with Halo armor design. After watching it I feel like I was finally able to understand why I didn't like 343i armor as much as the old suits. The two reasons would be the vibrant plastic-esque coloration and non-black bodysuit. He goes in-depth in his video about how lighting in Halo 5 makes the armor look plasticy and gives a very good solution of brightening the armor lights to fix it(although we'll have to take a few hits off realism by adding spotlights to armor). And now onto the black bodysuit, I think it would really give a more Halo feel to the armors without changing the actual armors themselves. Also, it would make the spartans' armor more recognizable even from long distances, which would really help highlight the great design put into them. He also mentions that the armors may be too detailed causing them to create excess noise, making them hard to be memorable, and considering my go to armors in Halo 5 are usually the simpler ones, helps his case. However, I don't think 343i needs to lower the detail on their armor because that may be a more subjective change and I'd rather implement changes that just improves all armor across the board. In conclusion, I personally think 343i should have spartans affected by light more so they lose that odd plastic look and replace them with some other way of making players stand out. Also, they should go back to a solid black bodysuit to put more emphasis back on the armor plating itself.